Demon Decades
by UbermenschOverdrive
Summary: Feeling Good has never felt this bad. Trapped in the Inc. Tower; but moreover, lost in the hedonistic forces at play, our band members find themselves stranded in the only oasis in sight. Despots in Cockaigne. Panic in Babylon. And windmills for the land. AU
1. Lit At Both Ends

**1. Lit at Both Ends**

**Endtroducing the band, and Demon Decades for that matter.**

**2D's POV**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Gorillaz, nor any of their subdivision genious rationale, character, or tracks. **

* * *

The dull red glow bathed the room in a less than solemn interior lighting; some circle of hell, as it were. Weary eyes overlooked the same old tired scene; a dogpile of bodies, scattered across the layout of the vast cathedral-esque space, sprawled over tables and snubbed cigarettes. Stygian smoke drifted lazily, inhaled and exhaled with no forethought required- as easy as breathing. Leaning back in his simple throne, downward stares were cast at the muted podium. His Magnum Opus, the same mantra delivered again and again like clockwork. By now, he was merely perfunctorizing. The words ingrained into his very fibre of being, so much so that he could not distinguish his own thoughts from the stemming tide of the lyric, crashing like a tsunami wave over that inner voice, and drowning it out. Snuffed, like a candle in the rain.

But it was mainly the smell that did him in. Cheap Marlboro intermingled with the heavy scent of Montecristo, the chronic stale liquor, and the acrid sweat burrowed new holes in the nasal cavities, an IOU of instant gratification in sight. Or smell anyway. Maybe it was all in his head. Last he recalled, he couldn't smell a thing due to his cold. But it was warm here. More than lukewarm, though luke had at one occasion to screw all, and turn the heating all the way up. Which did more than something certainly to increase the sweating. Bucket-loads of it, he noted as the floor started getting patchy from such copious amounts. Which didn't help the smell at all. Then again, it was all just in his head right?

Out of bounds. Whether an encore would be called for anytime soon, he didn't know. To curse his luck would have indicated he had once enjoyed its bittersweet fruits. No. No question nor doubt about it. Leaving was imminent- or was it? He'd tried before, tugging at the bulkhead doors until his arms ached and his muscles feebly protested, before giving out. Crawling back to his chair was all he could do. Even then, talking to Russel and Murdoc after. The three had, after a while, bared a certain brand of passion to break rank and just book it out of there. But Murdoc, of course, fell for the whole get-up hook, line, and sinker. Literally. Hookers, lines of cocaine and other intoxicants, sinking heavy-lidded into the mountains of flesh and other decorum. Enough to drive a preacher from his duty to God and defile an Amazonian warrior. A silent agreement was slowly borne; and even Russel shared Murdoc's sentiments by then. And by then, it was too late. Too late to drive the rusted nail out of the coffin, the first spike out the rail.

A voice- his own. He barely recognized his voice, though he never really bothered to get in tune with his. Only the pounding of his head deserved a fierce antipathy, the droning stamped out by the white pills, his saviours in caps lock. Knights in capsule armour, brushing down his throat to alleviate the entropy throbbing in more than one place.

Stiffening, he noticed he was still singing, the instruments still on the decibel level which required his vocals. He didn't need to think though: His voice was on auto-pilot by now. But that meant he'd have to take his pills later. He turned to stare out the window, as big as a cinema screen. Nevertheless, the sight it portrayed was better than any technicolour zombie flick. The cerulean sky shone in unadulterated, yet the room was too vile and defiled to let such purity in its bounds. Therefore, though outside it looked like a sparkling child's depiction of heaven, wisps of pale clouds floating below twinkling satellites far away; the serene light it emitted never came to caress his skin, nor touch the dirty shagged carpet.

A curse it was as well, to gaze out at the vast expanse of freedom that lay tantalizingly close within his reach.

_Through the looking glass_, he thought to himself. _It don't look so bad_.

A thick pane of glass and a set of interlocking rusted bars stood between the lone singer and his liberty. Yet still, the hardest prison to escape was still the mind, which he had long since thrown away the key to, into some abyss he'd long forgotten. The past as a passerby, brushing shoulders momentarily before turning up her collar and striding past lest a bare glance back. Acceptance was all that remained left of him to do, burn the last bridge before unpleasant rationale crossed. Docility like a dog.

These demon decades like scented candles lit at both ends...

Rasping the last words out, he slinked back to his self-assigned chair, collapsing semi-coherently into the trusty confines of the tight space.

_Feel Good..._ And you can shake it, shake it... _Feel Good_


	2. Dark City

**2. Dark City**

**Thanks for the review, it's much appreciated. Updates will arrive whenever; I don't have a schedule. But this definitely a work in progress. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Gorillaz, nor any of their tracks. **

"_In no longer pretty cities there are fingers in the kitties,_

_There are warrants forms and chitties and jackboot on the stair_

_There's sex and death and human grime_

_In monochrome for one thin dime_

_And at least the trains all run on time but they don't go anywhere..."_

The Vicious Cabaret, V

V for Vendetta

Dark city.

Though one would not necessarily deem the teeming megapolis as such at first light. At breakadawn, the early sun cast its rays over the golden anthills, lighting up the city; the Inc, and the other tinfoil towers below reflecting back the pale glow. The street lamps shut off with a whinge and a sputter; and even the neon beacons above the mountains of trash, flicker, before dwindling into nonexistence. The puddles on the street are send ablaze as well due to Helios. The onyx eye of the cameras on every block glint, but not menacing. More like shadows playing with mis-matched matchsticks. Burning the morning dew to ashes. Every nook and cranny, scant no place left untouched by Apollo's reach.

Pity it lasts only a mere moment.

Distant factories from foreign forefathers pump out spectral doldrums of clouds, rushing in to cover the sky with cut-out cards of gloom.

Helios and Apollo tug on their chariots, leading away from Babel.

Dark city.

* * *

It wasn't this way at first, he knew that. The interior of the chamber actually looked half decent, if anyone seeing it now could believe it. If he could, regardless. Sprawled out on a king sized bed, in one of the innumerable rooms of the tower; it was much quieter than it was in the main auditorium.

He wasn't the only inhabitant though. Other party-goers lay crashed and wasted at the foot of the bed, littered around. _At leas' they aren' fuckin' or sumfin_, he supposed. Only someone as dark as Murdoc would find public orgies inviting. 2D was no innocent puppy-dog by any means, having his life's share of relationships and women, but this place took it too far.

Other than that, the white noise from the TV filtered in to soothe his nerves. Occasionally a croak or moan could be heard by the underlings on the floor. Silence was more or less, hard to find in the citadel. But this was as close as he could get to perfect dead air.

As long as he'd lived, for music, he never thought he would ever want pure silence.

Even with the migraine in full effect; a porcupine waltzing through his head, sending riveting spikes of pain thudding through his soft membrane, he preferred music, as a point to focus on. When Paula burst his heart like a tacky water-balloon, and walked out after screwing Ole' Mudsy, he could be found blasting Bowie's _Life On Mars_. When Murdoc fell upon him like a stray dog, and his cries fell on deaf ears, he had The Clash on repeat in his head.

Pure silence only beckoned absolution; the deadening dull. John Cage's _4'33_ on a loop, ad aeternum. Though the internal monologue never ceased, nor the soundtrack booming between his ears, silence was as golden as the spoon he was born with.

Not so much.

Yet now, silence was all that refrained him from sinking through the dirty red shag carpet found on every floor in the tower, into Hel. Hell, silence _was_ a point to focus on. Better than most.

Better than nothing.

The sun erupted for a single blazing moment, crackling through the closed blinds. He shut his eyes hurriedly. He'd been sober for a while now, no hangover plagued him. But the light did odd things to him now, making him feel whole when he knows he's really in conjoined, mangled pieces.

Purity... Three strokes of pure gold beamed onto the sides of the massive bed, softly lighting up the room from the twilight tint it had afore. Gently blinking in the sudden warmth, the vocalist stretched a trembling hand towards the light, somehow wanting to feel its untainted immaculacy.

And Helios delivers. The radiance dances on his fingers, and he smiles; a little, rare expression he keeps mostly to himself these days. Shit, he keeps himself mostly to himself these days. His pale skin can really stand out now, compared to the sun god's tanned fingers.

Which retreat in a hurry, lest they should get caught in the blinds which have been pulled. The room returns to the dim twilight it once was. His glares could fell a lesser man, and they fall upon one of the wasted party-goer standing next to the blinds. Muttering incessantly, cursing the light.

Vile hatred choked him to something.

The lanky singer stood to his full size, seeming to fill the room. He grabbed the perpetrator by the neck and was about to smack the shit outta-

He opens his eyes. The ceiling meets his gaze. He's still laying on his back in the bed. He was just about to-

Violent phantasms. Overeager ferocity. Reckless abandon. He has to get out of here, that is certain. Before he turns into a Murdoc of a man. He clutches his head.

"Did I- Did I 'hit ya?" He asks, distressed. "I'm sowwy, didn't mean teh... teh attack ya..." His voice breaks off into a muted monologue.

"Shit." He mutters, seeing nobody really responds. He sinks his head in the pillow; the anger replaced by a drudgery fear. What if he'd changed? He couldn't have that now, one Murdoc in this world was enough without him joining the ranks of the wicked. Since birth, the kindred spirit that was Stuart, took it all in his stride. _This town ain't big enough for the both of us_, nor any more rows for malcontent people.

_What a wonderful world_... at least, until you take off those rose-tinted glasses; Gomorrah for all to see. He'd seen the big bad world, possibly more so than Murdoc the Satanist, or even Russ, whose friends got slaughtered on the eve. He'd realized the potentiality of evil in every possible person at a young age, and it scared him. But rather than giving in to veniality directly, to become as bitter as Murdoc, he chose to serve as a lighthouse in the dark spots of the world. A spurned candle lit at both ends... but even candles have a life-span. It was the pills that offered meagre shelter against the carnival of horrors that waited him outside his haze. The pills that deadened his nerve and withdrew the dull deadbolts of aches from his dome. The pills made him forgive and forget. Until he found another candle to burn.

One couldn't say 2D never tried.

But apart from the pills, music was the only haven where he could pretend the darkness didn't slither. Music, that parted the clouds and let the stars shine, that lifted the veil into green meadows and blue skies, that made the crickets chirp and the children laugh. After he'd seen the tendrils of hatred, the melody came in full fanfare a year later. A radio station's murky sound, suddenly clearing up at the first few seconds of _Human_, by The Human League. A poppy sensation, but it had struck a nerve with a toddling Stuart. From then on, it only got better. New Wave was at its zenith at the time, and an impressionable Stuart bought his first key-board, which he dictated many tunes to. And with music, he sought to inspire others.

Only the pills help now though. The song he sang everyday did little to nothing to idle away the rising memories. No more vis-a-vis rush, merely a passing perfunctory doldrum.

The pills: Guaranteed comfortable oblivion. Who could pass that up, in these demon decades?

He slumped back in the bed, distraught. He hadn't meant to lash out. Had he even lashed out? He tried to recall back. There was light and he wanted to be rid of it for it hurt his head, but in the meantime he also wanted it for it gave him that image again: Lush pastures with laughing children and... her? A woman of Asiatic descent- wait no, her silhouette was too small for her to be a woman. A girl, perhaps? Purity first, put purity before- and then the light disappeared. How'd it disappear though? Oh yes that stumbling prole. Had he hit him?

Had he not?

He stared at his hands, the paleness of it apparent to even him. Wriggled the flexible digits, Formed fists. Nope. Nothing to suggest his appendages had done more than just tremble in the last ten minutes.

He could use some pills now. Thinking was something he grew tired of in the tower, that which offered so much more than just unpleasant, nasty little-

Just a thought. More than what he could afford by now. Standing up, he went off into search for the capsules.

And the cameras below and above whirled, not ever so blinking in the perpetual morning-after twilight of this world.


End file.
